


'Twas There That We Parted

by DoctorTrekLock



Series: Paved With Love [2]
Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Allegory, Divided Highways, Eden!verse, Gen, M/M, Personification, Platonic or shippy - Freeform, Soulmates, dealer's choice, street au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-27
Updated: 2018-07-27
Packaged: 2019-06-16 22:58:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15447729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoctorTrekLock/pseuds/DoctorTrekLock
Summary: They had always existed side by side.  They were two halves of the same road, traveling west from some foreign eastern garden.





	'Twas There That We Parted

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ImprobableDreams900](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImprobableDreams900/gifts).
  * Inspired by [A Memory of Eden](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7534309) by [ImprobableDreams900](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImprobableDreams900/pseuds/ImprobableDreams900). 
  * Inspired by [The Inheritance of Eden](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11408583) by [ImprobableDreams900](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImprobableDreams900/pseuds/ImprobableDreams900). 



> This is for ImprobableDreams900. She doesn’t know I’m writing it, so I hope she’ll be at least somewhat excited about it (seeing as how she doesn’t quite approve of characters who don’t have any agency, such as personified strips of asphalt and gravel).
> 
> This is inspired by the two major works in her Eden!verse series. If there _were_ to be a third major installment in the series *cough cough* this allegory would not include the events of that _theoretical_ fic. This is a little abstract, so you don’t _necessarily_ need to have read both of them to understand the fic, and I don’t _think_ it will spoil things, but, y’know, ymmv.
> 
> For those of you keeping score, this is written using American lingo for an American divided highway. The geography described is an amalgam of various pieces of the American landscape.
> 
> I got the idea from listening to Green Day’s “Boulevard of Broken Dreams,” but the title is from the Scottish song “The Bonnie Banks o’ Loch Lomond.” Because I thought a song about high roads and low roads was a little relevant.
> 
> There are at least two quotes here lifted directly from Eden!verse. Oatmeal raisin cookies to whoever spots them.

They had always existed side by side.  They were two halves of the same road, traveling west from some foreign eastern garden.

After a time, they split, and each grew in their own role, until each half of the road was now as wide as they had been together.  They traveled west, silent companions.  At times, their paths diverged and one rose over a hill as the other sunk into a valley.  But they always ended up side by side once more.

As they stretched west, they found themselves in a small town where the days were always sunny and the laughter of children could be heard echoing through the streets.  The space between the curbs was narrow, and once more they were compressed together, their lanes touching, their pavements curling over one another, separated only by a single dashed yellow line, dividing one way from the other.

West of town, they split once more, quickly regaining what ground they had lost in their temporary partnership, but the two halves did not venture too far from each other this time.  The ground was flat, and the roads’ surfaces were smooth and parallel.  Another town approached, a small one, with a church, a small cottage, and a pub.  They slid next to each other again, sharing space comfortably, separated only by a narrow median of concrete and grass.

All too soon, they left the idyllic town behind.  The terrain beyond grew rocky.  Their paths were once again split.  One half continued on, ascending a slow, steady rise.  The other sunk below a marshy hill, its surface gradually obscured by fog and trees until it vanished completely from view.  The first still slid smoothly across a high ridge, pitch dark and silent, starlight glimmering across its unmarred asphalt.  The higher half of the road wound around hillocks and through forests, completely alone, its partner nowhere to be seen.

As it twisted around a final bluff, it abruptly found its other half once more: a little scuffed, a hair worn, but just as unfaltering and well-painted as it had been before the fog had dragged it from view.  The two leapt a river together and set off, their paths just as well-matched as they had ever been.

But it was not perfect.  Though the half that had run through starlight appeared untouched by time, the lanes that had been buried in fog were travel-worn.  The asphalt cracking and crumbling at the edges betrayed the imperfection inherent in the road’s construction.  They moved doggedly west, each half mile more difficult than the last as fractures began showing in an otherwise steady surface.

At last, orange signs began sprouting near the shoulders, cones and barrels erupting in their wake.  Each half of the road was slowly, inexorably narrowed into a single lane.  Suddenly, both halves of the road were abruptly neighbors once more, their high-speed traffic separated by scant inches of brightly colored paint and plastic.  The other lanes, only a handful of feet away across the grass, vanished once more, this time behind yellow machinery and looming piles of earth.

Eventually, the distant lanes reformed and traffic relaxed back into two halves of a single thoroughfare, separated by a narrow ditch of grass and dirt.  Both roads were now clean, black tar, matching in a way they had not since before their separation.  Their paint was crisp and new, brilliant against the inky darkness of their surfaces.

They extended into the west, toward whatever unknowns lay before them, each mile carrying them further and further from halcyon days spent in a verdant green garden, where the tree branches had hung heavy with the reddest, ripest fruit around.  As their futures unrolled before them, the constant companions lay shoulder by shoulder, silent under a dark sky studded with starlight.


End file.
